Glasgow Airport mixes up Irish and Scottish Gaelic in translation blunder
Gaelic speakers say the promotional sign, which used Irish Gaelic instead of Scottish, is a kick in the teeth
Last updated 14th May 2024
Glasgow Airport is facing criticism after travellers spotted a translation blunder, confusing Irish Gaelic with Scottish Gaelic on a restaurant sign.
The sign, promoting the Caledonia Restaurant and Bar, reads: "An bhfuil ocras ort? Caledonia. Coming soon."
However, the phrase "An bhfuil ocras ort?" is the Irish Gaelic for "are you hungry?"
The correct translation in Scottish Gaelic would be "A bheil an t-acras ort?"
Gaelic speakers have branded the mix-up as "embarrassing" and "disrespectful" to the language.
Murdo MacSween, a Gaelic speaker and co-founder of a Gaelic projects company, told Clyde 1 News: "As a Gaelic speaker, walking around places in Glasgow, it's really nice to see Gaelic.
"You never know who is another Gaelic speaker when you're travelling around a place like Glasgow.
"But I was going through the airport this morning with two other Gaelic speakers and we saw it.
"It's just embarrassing because they've gone to an extent to try and represent Gaelic in some way and then they fail at the very first hurdle by not getting somebody to check it or getting somebody to proof it.
"It's just really frustrating and demeaning."
He added: "We see a lot of restaurants and businesses and anything that's aimed at tourism using a lot of Gaelic and more so in the last five, ten years.
"Because of things like Outlander and the rise of Duolingo, it's made Gaelic a bit more visible and so people are using Gaelic.
"'Using' is probably the right term to use because they're not showing Gaelic respect when they're using it in a way that's maybe not necessarily representing the language in a very fair way.
"And so, showing it as Irish, someone's obviously Googled what we saw today and it's embarrassing because it just could have been fixed and been accurate by just any Gaelic speaker in Scotland having looked at that very quickly."
A Glasgow Airport spokesperson said: "The translation error was spotted by our retail team this morning and will be replaced by the airport partner responsible for the hoarding."
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